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the brain of morbius

story 84 : season 13 : serial 4K : 4 episodes

Producer: Philip Hinchcliffe
Director: Christopher Barry
Writer: Robin Bland
Script Editor: Robert Holmes
Designer: Barry Newbery

cast information

Tom Baker (Doctor Who); Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith); Philip Madoc (Solon); Colin Fay (Condo); Michael Spice (Voice of Morbius); Cynthia Grenville (Maren); Gilly Brown (Ohica); Sue Bishop (Sister); Janie Kells (Sister); Gabrielle Mowbray (Sister); Veronica Ridge (Sister); John Scott Martin (Kriz); Stuart Fell (Monster);

crew information

Felicity Trew (Assistant Floor Manager); L Rowland Warne (Costumes); Dudley Simpson (Incidental Music); Jean McMillan (Make-Up); Geraldine Stephenson (Movement); Carol Wiseman (Production Assistant); Janet Radenkovic (Production Unit Manager); Dick Mills (Special Sounds); Peter Catlett (Studio Lighting); Tony Millier (Studio Sound); Delia Derbyshire (Theme Arrangement); Ron Grainer (Title Music); John Horton (Visual Effects));

episode information

  Title First UK Transmission Duration Ratings Archive Status
1 Part One 3 January 1976 at 17:55 25'25" 9.5mil PAL 2 inch colour videotape
2 Part Two 10 January 1976 at 17:45 24'46" 9.3mil PAL 2 inch colour videotape
3 Part Three 17 January 1976 at 17:45 25'07" 10.1mil PAL 2 inch colour videotape
4 Part Four 24 January 1976 at 17:55 24'18" 10.2mil PAL 2 inch colour videotape
  1. Part One
    » Held by the FVTL when audited in 1978 (this tape is missing a small portion of music near the end of the episode)
  2. Part Two
    » Held by the FVTL when audited in 1978
  3. Part Three
    » Held by the FVTL when audited in 1978
  4. Part Four
    » Held by the FVTL when audited in 1978

release information

In Print:
Novelised as: Doctor Who and the Brain of Morbuis
Written by: Terrance Dicks
Number 007 in the Target Doctor Who Library

Versions
1977 Published by Allan Wingate Ltd, UK in hardback
With cover artwork by: Mike Little
23 June 1977 Published by W. H. Allen, UK in paperback
With cover artwork by: Mike Little
ISBN: 0 426 11674 7
13 November 1980 Published by W. H. Allen, UK in paperback
ISBN: 0 426 20063 2
June 1987 Published by Éditions Garancière, France in paperback
Translated into French by Francine Mondolini & Corine Derblum
With cover artwork by: Penichoux
ISBN: 2 734 00219 1
1991 Published by Virgin Publishing Ltd, UK in paperback
With cover artwork by: Alister Pearson
ISBN: 0 426 11674 7

plot synopsis

On the planet Karn, the brilliant Surgeon Mehendri Solon is searching for a suitable head to house the brain of Morbius, a renegade Time Lord executed on the planet years before with Solon retrieving the only surviving organ before the rest of the body was atomised. When the Doctor and Sarah arrive, Solon sees the perfect cranium for Morbius on the Time Lord. The Doctor has to contend with the Sisterhood of Karn, suspicious of his motives for visiting their world, thinking the Time Lords have sent him to steal their elixir of life, and then the mobile form of Morbius, when Solon puts the brain in a container fixed to a body constructed out of many parts retrieved from the wreckage of space crashes on the planet's surface

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